


The Space Between Heartstrings

by CourierNinetyTwo



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-05-21 23:12:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14924648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CourierNinetyTwo/pseuds/CourierNinetyTwo
Summary: In the Velvet Room, near the end of the world, Makoto and Ann have a conversation they've been holding back on for a long time.





	The Space Between Heartstrings

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Makoannthology zine, which is shipping out soon!

Makoto awoke to black floors, blue walls, and silver bars.

It was a cell, she pieced together seconds later, some heavy haze hanging across her thoughts like a web of chains. After a lingering blink, she reached back for leverage to stand, soft velvet meeting her fingertips. The texture sent a strange sensation up Makoto's spine, static and ethereal, strong enough that she jerked away from the wall. Getting her bearings took a few more minutes, and revealed only a few scraps of useful information.

She was indeed imprisoned, but there was no lock or hinge along any edge, only a design along the bars that was unnecessarily decorative. Makoto knocked her knuckles against the metal once, in hope they might give way like the walls, but the only result was a cold ache that radiated all the way up her arm.

"Johanna!" If this was another part of the Metaverse, some new pocket of warped reality, surely her Persona would answer the call.

Yet nothing came. Not even an echo of the sound, as if some invisible boundary kept her voice from passing through the gaps in the bars. No mask claimed her face, the frame of cold steel that Makoto found comforting disarmingly absent. There was always a pull from inside her body, deeper than her heart, where the broken chains around her soul gave way to that fusion of the divine and mechanical.

Now there was emptiness, like something precious had been pried from her chest and left only the hollow behind.

"Makoto?"

She startled, trying to figure out who had said her name, and from where. It was so faint, and past the cell there was only a grey stone hallway, depths lost to a distant curve that continued on for an unknown distance. Then Makoto squinted, trying hard as she could to pierce the shadows across the way.

There was more blue, a different shade. Recognition seized the shape around them, and from the compass of Ann's eyes, the rest of her face came together in the half-light. Makoto didn't even bother to disguise her sigh of relief; Johanna might be out of her reach here, but she wasn't alone.

"Yes, it's me." She raised her voice as much as she dared, unsure if the odd muting effect worked in both directions. "Are you okay, Ann?"

"As much as I can be, waking up in jail." Nails clicked on metal as Ann wrapped her hands around the bars and tugged to no avail. "I've had nightmares about this."

"We're not in the police station." That much Makoto was sure of, that where they were had only a tangential connection to reality. "They haven't caught the Phantom Thieves yet."

Ann scoffed. "I'm not so sure about that. All of Tokyo is stacked against us, and now we're stuck in...wherever this is."

"Can you summon Carmen?" Makoto asked.

"Um, let me see." After taking a step back, Ann shouted at the top of her lungs. " _Persona!_ "

Nothing. No spark, no flash, not even the smallest flicker of flame.

"Shit." Ann's curse carried the low tone of despair. "That's bad, right?"

Makoto's brow knit with both consideration and concern. "I think so. Unless they just don't work here?"

"That still doesn't tell us where _here_ is." Ann muttered.

For a while, silence fell between them. Without answers and locked in their respective cages, tension slowly brewed into unease. Soon it was chased by guilt, bitter on the back of Makoto's tongue. She had insisted she was ready for this final fight, casting aside too many doubts and regrets to count, and yet they were the only thing keeping her mind company.

Realizing she already missed Ann's voice was a low stab in Makoto's gut. In the last several months, they had grown closer, fought at each other's sides against Shadow after Shadow, but right now all Makoto could think about was the way they met.

"I know we've apologized to each other." Makoto began, worrying her thumbnail against the inside of her palm, scraping the lifeline. "About Kamoshida, I mean. The assumptions we made."

Another beat of silence passed before Ann asked, "What made you think of him now?"

"I was tracing the path that led us to this place, wondering if I missed something along the way." The confession was quiet, unsure. "I was so blind back then, it's hard to believe I'm seeing everything now."

"Makoto." Ann's laugh was soft, sympathetic instead of cruel. "We made up. If we're going to walk down memory lane, at least buy me another crepe."

"I would if I could." Makoto smiled a little; it was hard not to around Ann. "I should have treasured that moment, back when we could pretend things were still halfway normal."

"Normal sucked." Ann said definitively, crossing her arms. "Normal was seeing Shiho hurt and both of us acting like nothing was wrong."

Biting her tongue, Makoto had to agree. "Normal was my sister coming home in a bitter fury every night. We could never talk about it."

"But you and I fixed those things, right?" Doubt made Ann's voice waver, and her shoulders tensed up. "Unless we made a wrong turn at some point."

"Is that what you think?" Makoto asked softly.

"Maybe. I feel so selfish sometimes." Seconds ticked by before Ann found her words again, fragile and carefully pieced together. "I started this for Shiho. I don't care about being famous or anything, but I...it's more than that now."

For some reason, Makoto couldn't help but smile wider, gesturing to the strange walls around them. "I think the end of the world decided that."

"Yeah, and we're supposed to take down some weird god while I still wish you and I managed to go on another date together." Ann laughed. "That's stupid, isn't it?"

There was suddenly a stone in Makoto's throat, too hard to swallow past. "You want to _date_ me?"

More silence followed, although she heard Ann drawing in a deep breath to steady herself. "Niijima Makoto, I should have kissed you when I had the chance."

In the last several months, Makoto had been knocked flat by any number of Shadows, had her mind spun around by nefarious attacks, or just been straight-up stunned by pain in the middle of a fight. What she felt now was similar, a sort of dizziness where she could hear nothing but her own heartbeat.

Except this time, she liked it.

"Well, if it makes you feel better, Ann..." After saying the other girl's name, she needed a breath too, some anchor to grasp at. "You're not selfish. I should have kissed you too."

The shocked look Makoto received in turn said volumes. There had been no hope of reconciliation, much less reciprocation, only the desperate confession springing forth when time was too short to dream of the consequences.

"I know what people have said about me, but I don't..." This time when Ann laughed, her face flushed pink. "I have no idea what I'm doing here."

"I don't either." At least that was easy to admit; Makoto wouldn't pretend to have any romantic expertise when she possessed none.

"And I don't know how to get out of here." Ann insisted, then let out a sigh. "Or how long we have left."

There was no way to know, not when their captor had yet to appear, and no reason for imprisonment given. Makoto tried the bars again, pushing and pulling with every ounce of strength she could muster, but without Johanna empowering her, any hope of escape was a fleeting fantasy.

"We have each other." Makoto finally said, relaxing her fingers. "And you know Akira wouldn't go down so easily."

"I'm pretty sure he has nine lives at this point." Everything that happened in the casino seemed so far away now, an almost impossible heist made real; stealing a corner of the real world long enough for their ruse to pass muster. "But what can we do?"

"Keep each other's spirits up." She knew despair was the worst sort of fuel, rotting away the mind from the inside; grief was even worse. "Maybe whoever's locked us in here will complain if we talk loudly enough."

Ann laughed. "So it's gossip hour?"

"No." What they needed was hope; a target in the distance. Something to reach for. "What would we be doing if we weren't in here?"

"Oh." Drumming her fingers against the wall, Ann mulled her answer over. "I've always wanted to ride on your motorcycle."

Makoto's heart thumped so hard against the inside of her chest, she was sure Ann must have heard it. "Really? Where would we go?"

"Anywhere." Her smile turned sheepish, a hint of red tinting Ann's face. "It just seems like it would be nice."

"I'd make you wear a helmet." Makoto countered, although she couldn't stop herself from smiling.

"Right. Safety first, Officer Niijima." With a little salute, Ann grinned. "Have you ever wanted to take me anywhere?"

That was an incredibly loaded question, but Makoto did her best to come up with a good answer. "Yes. But it's kind of a moodkiller."

Curiosity flickered through Ann's gaze, her smile waning by degrees. "I'm listening."

"I'd want to take you to see my parents." Makoto said softly, hoping it didn't sound half as strange as it felt. "I told myself a long time ago that if I was ever happy with someone, I wanted them to know."

"Oh, Makoto." The building concern in Ann's eyes was washed away by a faint shine of tears. "That's really sweet."

"Please don't cry." It came out of her mouth louder than she meant, followed by a blush.

"It's not bad tears, don't worry." Ann laughed, shaking her head. "I'd take you to meet my parents too, whenever they decide Japan is in vogue again."

Makoto nodded, although the tension in her chest had yet to fade. This was a half-light sort of future, barely illuminated. There was still the fight ahead, and so much to survive, even if they managed to get out of these cells. She had to believe that they would, that together their strength would be enough.

"You know what this place kind of reminds me of?" Ann asked, and when Makoto frowned, she gestured up. "When I got Carmen."

Following the direction of Ann's hand, Makoto realized the ceiling above their heads was made of thousands of woven chains, just like the ones that burned in the fire around Johanna's wheels.

No, not like. They were _exactly_ the same.

"Is this where Personas come from?" Tapping a finger against her chin, Makoto fell into contemplation. "We each made a contract, didn't we? I promised to tread the path of strife."

"And I promised to avenge Shiho." Even saying the other girl's name made Ann's shoulders straighten, her whole posture finding shape. "That I'd never restrain myself again."

"Then why are we still behind these bars?" Gripping the bars tight, Makoto summoned every last bit of confidence she could muster, forged like a shield around her heart. "Whoever's holding us back, they've got it coming to them."

"Yeah, they do." Ann's smile was razor-sharp now, filled with fire. "You with me?"

As if she could ever be anything else. "I'm with you."

" _PERSONA!"_

For a second, Makoto's entire world was blue light. It was like the moment she ripped off her mask in front of Kaneshiro, but this time anger wasn't driving her; it was raw determination, sparking like steel on steel. When she could see again, heavy knuckles wrapped her hands, their spikes matching the ones daring from dark sleeves. Johanna's engine echoed with a hum through her head, energy building until it exploded outward.

The bars shattered, fragments disappearing into black smoke before they hit the floor. When the coils of fog cleared, Makoto saw Ann standing in her own destroyed cell, a riot of red with whip in hand. She tasted ash and perfume on the back of her tongue, but they both smiled when their eyes met.

"How's that for a jailbreak?" Ann laughed, but tensed when footsteps approached from a distance.

Makoto gripped the knuckles in her hands tighter, ready for a fight, but it was Akira that came around the corner. He was already dressed as Joker, albeit without any Persona in sight, and stopped right in place as he saw them.

"You got out?" Surprise transformed into a knowing grin. "I should have known."

"Where's everyone else?" Makoto asked.

"In the other cellblock." Akira gestured back behind him with his thumb. "We might have to do a little convincing to get them out."

With a teasing waggle of her wrist, Ann smiled. "No worries. I'll whip them into shape."

When Akira nodded and turned around to leave, though, Ann held back a step. Makoto's brow creased with worry until gloved fingers cupped her chin and pulled them close together. The kiss was brief, mere seconds of heat and relief, but she felt what it was meant to be: a promise.

"Just to tide you over until we win." Ann whispered softly.

Makoto's heart gave way, hope and affection leaving her dizzy. "Then I should do the same for you."

The second kiss was a touch longer, enough for both of them to have flushed faces when it finally broke apart. Makoto heard a pause in Akira's footsteps, like he had just realized they weren't following him, and jumped to attention.

"Let's go." She said, trying not to let the joy pounding through her heart show through.

Ann winked. "After you, Queen."

\--


End file.
